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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25327207">All's Pharah: Love and War</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZigzagsGolden/pseuds/ZigzagsGolden'>ZigzagsGolden</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Overwatch (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Christianity, Colonialism, F/M, Islam, Maledom, Maledom/Femsub, Misogyny, Patriarchy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 04:14:32</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,866</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25327207</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZigzagsGolden/pseuds/ZigzagsGolden</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>An Overwatch fanfic about a socially dissonant, apocalyptic world where humanity reverts to patriarchy. Covering months and eventually years, Pharah's story of navigating and eventually joining this new world is told.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>All's Pharah: Love and War</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>[Warning: This story will likely be found offensive to sum. It is a blatant fantasy of domination and objectification of the female gender. I would not recommend reading if you are easily offended.]</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When the suit was functioning properly, she felt cool. Not now, though. Pharah ran a diagnostic while she could, while there was time. The on board computer whirred and blinked, and about half a minute passed before it gave her her answer: power at 70%, damage to tertiary systems. Shit! She said to herself.</p><p>Atop a dune she stood, watching the fires burn and mirages shimmer off into the horizon. Thousands of shattered and ruined Omnics lay across the battlefield, behind and before her. Among them were corpses, the slain bodies of her foes. Carnage had shown itself to the earth these last two hours, and she was still standing in spite of it.</p><p>“Commander Pharah, drone surveillance shows the next wave approaching. They are about ten minutes out.” The com officer on the radio told her, but she could sense as much.</p><p>“Affirmative. Running some repairs and reloading payloads. Standby.” Opening her suit’s tool kit, she flash-welded a few breaches, making sure to burn out bits of metal poking into the endoskeleton. One of the dozens of ordinance crates was turned over nearby in the sand, and from it she loaded in as much rocketry as the suit would hold. As the last projectile clicked into place in its magazine, the horizon flooded with shapes. The Rhodes Initiative was close.</p><p>The world was falling apart. In the last eight months, a second global crisis had emerged. The second Overwatch had broken, thanks in no small part to the slaughter at Potala. Pharah winced at the thought of it, remembering the retreat as she had left the disaster and took off into the sky. Most of the newer team were dead, and those remaining were far too caught up in regional clashes to make any joint effort. Pharah, on returning home, was quickly reinstated into the Egyptian military and given supreme command of its forces. Talon, the Cairo mob, they meant nothing now. Now was only the threat seething in from the Mediterranean.</p><p>Resource scarcity had hit Northern Europe. The Ruhr conglomerates failed, dozens in only a day. Combined with a massive Omnic workforce and not enough jobs, various companies and factions had formed the Rhodes Initiative. It was both radical and reactionary regime: borders were redrawn, ancient rivers dammed and drained, and women there had lost the vote. </p><p>The leaders on the continent sought to address the crumbling economies by aiming to retake resource-rich land in Africa surrendered only a century before. Pouring from Gibraltar in the west and now from Greece in the Eastern Mediterranean, the mechanized war front was making landfall in the Nile Delta. Intel gathered thus far suggested they meant to claim Egypt before moving further south and then east to swallow the Sahara. They can't, and they won't, Pharah consoled herself.</p><p>And now was the second wave of the thrust. Looming closer, hundreds of jet fighters pocked the sky. Larger assault aircraft follower in their wake, and lower, about a thousand yards above the ground, were cadres of their mechanized foot soldiers. Like Pharah, they wore jet powered suits. She activated her targeting computer, and it plotted out dozens of vectors on the approaching foe. She fired, releasing a massive salvo from the armor.</p><p>The missiles reached their targets, and a flurry of explosions riddled the sky. Behind her, the anti air batteries opened up from their pillbox emplacements, riddling the Rhodians with tracer rounds and SAM shots. More aircraft exploded, or caught aflame and began careening toward the earth. Pharah smiled to herself, though she knew that this fight had only just begun. The infantry were nearly there, and she steeled her resolved.</p><p>A contingent of about twelve suit clad soldiers pounded forward, jetting their own caripices with fervor. Pharah fired her primary rocket into one of them, and he reeled into the sand. The others opened up with plasma cannons, causing Pharah to do a sudden dodge. One soldier got in close, and put an armored fist forward. “Submit to the Initiative!”</p><p>Pharah reacted quickly, avoiding the blow while grabbing his arm, and twisted it sharply. The man cried out in pain as he stumbled over, and Pharah stomped his head into the dune. Plasma fired cascaded toward her, and she took a few hits. The suit heads up display alerted her to external damage, but she brandished her rocket once more and fired into the other soldiers. Sparing no time she boosted forward and began to kick and punch them into submission until at last they lay destroyed in the sand.</p><p>She took a moment to collect her breath, but more soldiers were approaching, at least a score more suit clad infantry. Regretfully, Pharah turned on the radio channel. “All stations, prepare for ground engagement. Second wave commencing in full force.”</p><p>Off in the distance an alarm sounded, and Pharah knew that the pillboxes were opening their blast doors. Her countrymen- riflemen, APCs, tactical ATVs -they would be coming to join her. She hated to think of how many would die under her command, but she could not fight this second attack on her own.</p><p>Carnage was rehashed once more on the somber dunes. Blood ran, sparks flew, and the air burned with diesel fires and electrical flames. Pharah fought on instinct, on years and years of veterancy. So many fell before her: jet craft crashed, Omnics shattered, men died. One action after the other, there was always one more.</p><p>An assault carrier flew over her, a bit low, and she could hear above the gunfire the sound of its rear door open. Looking up, she saw a figured leap from inside, and come soaring down to earth. The crash came, kicking up dust in her mouth from the close impact. She coughed and peered through the cloud. A body suit. A man. A metal skin with the sinew of a bicep visible. And on top, a clockwork mask crowned in a pith helmet. Pharah knew the name: The Gear Goblin, Frederick Tandy.</p><p>“Greeting and salutations, Commander Pharah. I had hoped to meet you myself today. I knew the first wave could not trump the finest soldier in Egypt.” His voice was modified by his suit, and sounded both primal and mechanical.</p><p>Pharah’s upper face was covered, though she unconsciously narrowed her eyes. “Your world is ending. As many as you send, we will destroy them all. I will take great pleasure in killing you, Goblin.”</p><p>Tandy laughed, the digital guffaws raising the hair on Pharah’s back. He leveled with her, “I don't want to kill you, Pharah. I want this country. And you are going to give it to me.”</p><p>“Never!” Pharah charged and swung at him. He shuffled sideways, and as she plunged past him he kicked her with mechanical strength. She flew forward across the sand, tumbling while trying to stabilize herself with rocket thrust. When she leveled she turned quickly to fire at him. The Gear Goblin threw up a wrist and deployed a photonic shield on it, and the impact and explosion left him unfazed. The gears in his mask shifted, and the mouth smiled frighteningly.</p><p>Sweat and sparks, the air rang with melee as the two collided. Around them the two armies fought, and gunfire and screams echoed throughout the desert. Pharah was proactive in her battle now, seeming to always miss the crippling blow on Tandy. The dance went on and on until finally, it seemed, Pharah got her chance.</p><p>Hit by a mortar shell, a nearby Rhodian foot soldier half melted to goo as his plasma cannon burst open. There was a small static discharge that followed, and Tandy’s armor began to sizzle and stall. It was all Pharah needed. She whooshed around him quickly, and with her mechanized grip, crushed his primary power core as it vented on his back. He called out, in either pain or anger or both. The thrusters on his suit had no juice; Pharah’s onboard computer approximated a sixty percent loss in his max mobility.</p><p>Tandy turned as his remaining functions coalesced finally as the suit recovered from the crippling fizzle. “Well done, Commander. I am impressed.”</p><p>“Final words?” Pharah was ecstatic, on a high of adrenaline. The world, the battle around them seemed to fade. Men could be heard, shouting amidst the gunfire, but the noise was but a glimmer. Pharah, to her own admission, had failed to maintain her usual SitRep on anything but the Goblin. But, as it were, that was not on her mind any longer.</p><p>Her foe reached up, noticeably slower than he should have, and gripped the mask around the brim of the pith helmet. Pharah heard a small clack of gears, and the Goblin unharnessed his headgear at last, and threw it sideways into the sand. She looked, gaze stolid through her cracked visor. She looked upon the man who was Frederick Tandy.</p><p>In spite of the hideous gear and cog mask, beneath the visage was actually, Pharah couldn't help thinking, a fairly handsome man. She had always figured, through various intel acquired by agents throughout Eurasia, that the Gear Goblin was indeed a goblin, a fiendish wretch of some sort. This man before her, this man glowering at her, was bright eyed and smartly chiseled. Not at all the stuff of nightmares. She was at a loss for words.</p><p>So Tandy spoke: “Pharah. You must know how long I've waited to show my face to the world. To my own men.” He swallowed. “To you.”</p><p>“Me?” Pharah pried, a bit too sanguine for her own liking.</p><p>He continued. “Today has been a long day coming. I have waited years to show what I am beneath. And the planning; the imperial office went all in on their bet you would be here today, not just barking commands from Cairo. We needed you here, for this all to work.”</p><p>Pharah was feeling on edge; something was very off about this conversation. To make herself feel a bit more grounded, she loaded another rocket into her primary weapon and pointed it at Tandy. “You have...ten seconds...ten, and then I am going to end this.” The last part was a bit muted in her own ears, as some shrill frequency began to blare on her suit speakers.</p><p>She did, however, discern what the man opposite her was saying. “More time than you have. Egypt is ours. The days of the Gear Goblin are over. I have a dynasty to sow. And sow it I shall, wife.”</p><p>Before she could react, before her eyes could even widen a millimeter, the sky tore open.</p><p>“Unknown radioactive variable detected.” Her suit told her, monotone. On the radio, a frenzy of screams and curses, in English, Arabic, Farsi, other tongues, called out for God. The heavens rippled in a series of thunderclaps, and the air shimmered with an azure haze. Pharah felt her ears pop, then pop again, and she felt sick to her stomach. She fought For consciousness, but couldn't help fainting once, and when she came to her suit readouts were dark. Using her own strength, she barely arched her head up, the helmet mechanisms pushing back.</p><p>The sun was lime green in this queer twilight. Tandy reached a hand over his hip, pulled a tension level, and most of his suit peeled away in plates. All of it that remained equipped on him was brass, whirling clockwork framed around his bare shins and arms. He stepped forward toward her. “You're about to pass out. When you awake, you will surrender to me. Don't forget what I've said.” And with his burly arm and copper-clawed hand, he punched, penetrating straight into her breast plate.</p><p>*****</p><p>Queasiness, fatigue. Pharah was drooling, and half stupid from her imbalance. She needn't even open her eyes to feel off key. But she did. The sand stung her eyes, and she became aware she was not in her suit, only the slim jumper that she usually wore under it. Time had passed, but how much? The sun still did not look alright; the shadows were dim and long across the dunes, but it was not dusk. </p><p>She began to recall the battle. It's ups and downs, and then, it's finale. Panic gripped her and she tried to sit up from where she lay on the ground. Her hands were bound, cuffs tight around the wrist. But her feet were free, and years of athleticism allowed Pharah to leap up and stand. Dizziness, queasiness. Her eyes groped for something besides the terrain, and she saw a fire. It was just down the hill, a few hundred feet away.</p><p>Awkwardly and with poor stability, she shambled downward, trying not to trip and send herself rolling. The fire began to get bigger in her fuzzy vision, and she felt it's intense blaze. Pharah edged closer, and nearly ran into someone. She blinked, more than a dozen times, trying to focus. Finally, she could make out some detail.</p><p>“Hello,” Frederick Tandy stood there, gazing into the flames. Rage filled Pharah quickly, but her incoherent mind almost made her vomit. She couldn't speak yet, so the man spoke again. “That's the first time we've used the weapon. We call it, well the apparatus that deploys it, the Quark Array. About fifteen satellites, poised above a geographic area. The most powerful EMP effect known to earth. Zaps near everything with a microchip. Only cloaked systems and analog work. Don't worry, your sickness will soon fade.”</p><p>Pharah didn't know what to make of that, and her thoughts suddenly turned to something else: “The infantry...my men. What happened? Did you...no, please!”</p><p>“They're alive, well, the ones who didn't die in the fight. Their fate, the fate of this whole country is up to you. And me.” He didn't even look sideways at her when he spoke.</p><p>There was a moment of silence. Pharah was morbidly floundering. She had expected a mass grave from the Rhodians, not mercy. Her body now noticeably ached, sore from her melee with this man. She grimaced, sneering. “So, my men or my country? Is that it? The most vile of options.”</p><p>Tandy was quick to reply, “Your country is already mine. I can take the rest of it by scorched earth. Millions will die, cities will burn. Your choice will save your people untold suffering. Order the army to stand down and surrender. The soldiers who wish to fight may do so under our banners, going forward. Otherwise, they may return to civilian life. I just need your proclamation. A proclamation, and you.”</p><p>Pharah noticed just then Tandy was holding something, it being difficult still for her to see well. But now she could focus a bit more, and made out the shape: it was the Gear Goblin mask, from his suit. She inspected the many geared grooves and apertures, thinking of how to reply. “Me,” she finally blurted out. “Do you mean…?”</p><p>Tandy didn't respond at first. Instead, he turned over the mask in his hands, grains of sand spilling out. At last, he chucked it into the fire. “I am the Initiative’s appointed governor for this new colony. I must establish a presence of blood and lineage here, to solidify our power. The time of the Goblin and Commander Pharah are over. You will be my wife, to serve me and bear my children. As soon as the troops stand down, we will move on to Cairo. I will take my seat before the masses, and tonight you will be in my bed.”</p><p>Shock and horror. Pharah was paralyzed, disgust in her stomach and fear down her spine. She spat in the sand at his feet. “Pig! I will not. I am not your trophy! I will never-”</p><p>“There are others who might fill your role as a lover and political gesture, but you offer the least destruction and misery in this land. Capitulate one last time as a soldier, before the army. As we ride into Cairo you will be my betrothed. And before the month ends we shall be wed.”</p><p>Pharah's eyes were gleaming with hot, furious tears. She was so outraged, so humiliated. This wasn't right. This wasn't supposed to happen. They were supposed to win, stop the invasion. She looked away from him, into the flames. The clockwork mask was glowing red hot, and she realized beside it was her suit helmet with flames arcing from it like a demon. That's what this pyre was: both their armored suits. And her future was embers within. </p><p>A long, eerie silence pervaded. The alloys of the armors crackled, and faint voices were heard a ways off. Tandy cleared his throat: “I want you to know that this is going to be a process, you and I. You will be molded from a fierce warrior into a submissive wife. Me from a shock trooper into a politician. You will not be my equal, but tonight, when we meet in intimacy, I will, only once, make love to you as such. You will not be afraid or repulsed; you will be seduced. It is my opening gesture to our life together. Pharah, ground yourself. More challenges lay ahead, for you and this country, but for now you needn't worry.”</p><p>Fear and repulsion, and hate. That was all she could process. But the distant voices grew louder, and finally some Rhodian soldiers emerged over the dunes. She steeled herself, more rigid than she’d ever been in any fight she'd faced. Pharah looked at Frederick, the air finally clear around them, and swayed a bit for balance. “You've crushed my soul, but I guess, yes. If it means saving the innocents, I'll marry you.”</p><p>*****</p><p>“There's still about four districts left to pacify, but that should be soon, my lord!” The vanguard officer yelled at them from a checkpoint as the APC bounced through the outskirts of Cairo. </p><p>Frederick nodded at the man from the slit window. “Thank you, soldier. I'm sure it will only be a few hours. Particularly after the motorcade and address.” He shot a short grin at Pharah, but she looked away.</p><p>It was nearing eight o'clock in the evening, and the city center lay before them. Her order, broadcast nationally as well as in person, had a great effect on quelling resistance. She was happy to see her men being merely stripped of their weapons and rounded up into loose waiting areas, even offered rations and cigarettes from Rhodian troops. Maybe the end of the world isn't all bad, she thought glumly.</p><p>As they passed deeper into the suburbs, the citizens were lining the streets. Many times the procession slowed or even halted to wait for crowds to finally clear. Pharah could see her fellow Egyptians were anxious as well. The country had fallen, and besides the super weapon near the Delta hours ago, things were relatively stable. Aircraft flooded the skies again, dropping packages of supplies, non perishables and first aid. They are trying to win the people all ready, Pharah told herself.</p><p>Half an hour passed and they were pulling up to a large plaza near the city center. Tens of thousands of people swarmed all around. APCs, armed infantry, drones buzzed anxiously through the tumult. Pharah was given a heavy bracelet by the Rhodian grunt next to her. “Stasis shield, before you get out. We don't know what the crowd’s going to do.”</p><p>Indeed, the crowd was rowdy. When Pharah stepped from their transport, jeers and boos, as well as tears and screams became perceptible. Bottles and trash were thrown over the soldier’s heads. Pharah flinched as a soda can came straight toward her, but the projective bounced off the photons and she felt not so much as a tickle. Frederick grabbed her hand, impatient. “Come dear, up to the fountain. I need a good view for local TV as well.”</p><p>Indeed, news drones and cameramen were everywhere, filming this world-changing event. The steps to the fountain apex were shallow but numerous, red sandstone riddled with cracks and breaks. Still led by Tandy,  Pharah ascended to the very top, where a full contingent of his finest mechanized soldiers stood on guard. Frederick nodded to the captain, cleared his throat, and turned at last to the masses, to the world.</p><p>“My name,” he began, “Is Frederick Tandy. Egypt has surrendered to the Rhodian Initiative, and I am appointed as the Colonial Governor. My word, as interpreted from in the capital back in Cologne, is law.”</p><p>The crowd roared in anger, and anxiously Pharah grasped her shield bracelet. That was not what they wanted to hear, she thought.</p><p>Tandy did not seem to heed the outrage. “Also, Lady Pharah here, formerly commander of the Egyptian army, is to be my wife. We shall establish, with my seed and her womb, the lineage of sons and brothers who will rule here for the next millennium.”</p><p>There was a desperation in the people that was about to explode. The guard captain was visibly worried, and looked askance at Tandy, who was smiling.</p><p>“And that's the only difficult news I have.” The new governor finally said. The crowd calmed down a bit, and he adjusted the microphone on his chest. He swallowed, “...about a century ago, some men who looked like me finally let men who looked like most of you rule themselves. My ancestors, many of them, they thought themselves superior to the folk of this land. Better, stronger, more civilized. They got it wrong.”</p><p>Some whistles came from the crowd, but one male voice yelled: “That's all you are, a racist devil here to destroy us all!”</p><p>Frederick allowed the volume around him to lower before continuing. “Fifty years ago, men that looked like you came to the place that men like me lived. Some just wanted a better life, but too many brought the tired, antiquated violence of the Old World to those shores. They destroyed their own lives to make my ancestors suffer. The terrorists of the early 21st century, they got it wrong.”</p><p>Pharah noticed a small helicopter landing on the other side of the plaza, it's chopping blades mixed in with the millions of voices.</p><p>“And five hundred years ago,” Tandy was belting out, “Men who looked like me went further south of here, and took men who looked different and put them in chains. Years and centuries of pain, tears, and mistrust followed. They got it wrong.”</p><p>The crowd was much more quiet now, very interested in where this was all going. “So where do we go from here? My name, as I said, is Frederick Tandy of the Rhodian Initiative. We are strong and unstoppable and we are going to change the world. The biggest mistake, the ultimate root in all the problems in the world today, is one simple thing. It crosses every culture and nation on this planet, it creeps over every hamlet and burg, oozes into our homes and minds. And do you know what it is?”</p><p>For the throng gathered, there was a stunning stillness. Every eye in the world was on this man, and Pharah was looking at him too.</p><p>“The illusion of female agency. The participation of the female human in politics, in business, and,” he looked at Pharah briefly. “Warfare. Every inch given to the maelstrom of flighty, aimless emotion that has conglomerated in the last two centuries and more has eroded the bedrock of mankind.”</p><p>With that the crowd went wild. Women screeched and screamed and cursed, and so did some of the men. A noticeable chunk of the Arabic section, as well as the  assembled Slavic refugees, were silent. A mass of people was circling around a figure making its way from where the helicopter had landed. Pharah, still leery from Tandy’s troubling statement, was trying to determine who was coming.</p><p> “Lies,” Tandy was proclaiming. “Lies from Washington, from Beijing, from Mecca and the Vatican. And above all, blasphemy from this ‘Overwatch’. Fate saw fit to ruin that abomination, as I'm sure you all well know of Potala.”</p><p>Pharah had a pang in her heart from that last part. Grief, memories and faces flooded her. And a hate for Frederick spurred to a further intensity.</p><p>But he was not finished. “All sycophants and fools who ignored our species’ most basic truth. But this new society, forged from the ruins of Western democracy and the ashes of sharia, will not make those mistakes. I, Governor Frederick Tandy, proclaim now the Patriarchal Mandate of Rhodian Egypt! And as one of the first steps, seed my own blood further into this land that will now be my home.”</p><p>The figure in the crowd was finally up to the fountain. Well, actually Pharah noticed, it was two figures. One she recognized: it was Imam Abu Nkomo, one of the top clerics in Cairo. The man had immigrated about five years earlier from his native Senegal, and stood out among the crowd in his white kufi and coal skin. He was also known for a mild controversy sometime back, where he had flirted publically with the idea of inviting overt North American investment into the crumbling urban quarters.</p><p>Beside him was a woman, her face nearly entirely shrouded in a chador and traditional garb. All that was visible was a flash of her green eyes, and her soft, pale hand poking out from a sleeve. Tandy beckoned both of them over to him and Pharah. “Salaam,” Nkomo greeted her.</p><p>Pharah nodded at him, perplexed. Tandy stepped up to the other woman. “My countrymen, I would like to introduce our new Lieutenant Governor. And...his new wife, Francesca Tandy.” He reached and pulled off the woman’s covering, revealing her shapely face and blonde hair.</p><p>Is that…? No… Pharah recognized Francesca; she was a premier model back in Europe, and new to her and everyone else, Frederick’s sister. How they had both managed to hide that secret in this age of information, Pharah could not figure.</p><p>Nkomo put a hand on Francesca’s shoulder and began to address everyone loudly. “A great and blessed age is upon us, children of God. The old ways crumble, for us and our new brothers. The great Nile spills over, flooding the land, drowning out the chaff and the sin and blasphemy. Ibrahim and the Prophet wade the rushing water, blessing man in their immaculate return. The sun dries the land, revealing it fertile and as supple as a bosom. And man finally knows his mastery of it.”</p><p>“When the eons wither the planet to rock, the universe will know that we lived as titans. Our legacy reigns eternal. Men of Egypt, my brothers, see the birthright that we share.” Tandy spoke clinically, and then nodded at his brother in law. Nkomo gripped Francesca’s clothing between both hands and began tearing it away. Fabric ripped, thread bare and ragged, until at last the garment was in tatters at her feet. The woman wore no underwear, and bared herself to the crowd and cameras. Tandy asked her, “Speak sister, who are you now?”</p><p>Francesca, hands on her smooth hips, finally spoke. “My name is Francesca Tandy. Rhodian. Wife. Woman.”</p><p>Frederick, still beside Pharah, gripped his betrothed’s hand softly. He spoke again to his sister, “And what, sweet Francesca, do you live for? What will every woman of this nation, by divine providence, learn to do?”</p><p>Pharah was tense, the evening air seeming hotter than normal. She watched Francesca’s bare throat clench from a swallow, and the other woman answered with a gentle smile: “To serve.”</p><p>Thousands of male Egyptian voices erupted across the plaza, hollering ecstatically in Arabic. In the Slavic sections, Russian and Polish men clapped loudly, their applause the sound of heavy rain. Pharah never felt so disgusted and horrified in her life. Her countrymen were jeering at Francesca raucously, apparently forgetting their pious rearing, their own wives and daughters. The end of the world was that bad. Faith and decency had died, gnashed in the maw of a great viper.</p><p>Frederick Tandy, Lord Governor of Rhodian Egypt, licked his teeth in a wicked smirk. Pharah looked at him, and then to his sister. The woman just then turned her head around, her back muscles flexed and rippled, and met eyes with Pharah. The former’s gaze was a deep darkness , consuming Pharah in its complicit scorn and utter submission. Frederick squeezed Pharah’s hand tightly, popping a joint. Torn away hijabs and scarves began being tossed through the air, thousands blanketing the fountain steps. Her new master finished his speech at last, almost hoarse: “There is only one God: the Y chromosome. Boys, burn it all.”</p><p>Two of the guardsmen stepped forward, the civilians quickly clearing way. Both soldiers had bulky phosphorus torchguns held in their arms. In quick burns of blue flame, they scorched the women’s clothing into cinders. The cheering grew deafening. Poles came pushing through the crowd with rosaries torn away and pilfered from their own wives and girlfriends. Their crosses and beads melted away as well. The sun had finally gone behind the horizon, and the fountain soon became a pyre burning in the night.</p>
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